was Israel not attacked?

If you're attacked, you don't have the right to escalate the situation however you please, especially if it's against international law.

I genuinely have issues trying to discern the propaganda from the facts.

Sure, it's hard. It isn't easy sometimes for me either. You just have to take in information and draw your own conclusions. Of course, depending on the information you get your view will ve skewed. In my opinion it's impossible to be biased, but you have to at least try to siniff out the propaganda and lies, which I commend you for doing.

from what I gathered, I believed that Israel just took some land on which other people were living ~70 years ago, displacing these people.

That's true, sort of. Israel was given part of the land after WWII by the UN as a result of wellmeaning intentions. However, a conflict arose, culminating in the First Arab-Israeli war. Next was the Six-day war some 20 years later, followed by other conflicts. Then 5 years later, the Yom Kippur war. Other than that there have been other conflicts with the Palestinians, notably in 2007, 2012, 2014 and 2021. Finally there's the current conflict which started last year.

Of course, some of this was justifiable by Israel, but the problem is the way Israel treats Palestinians. There's a good chance that if they weren't treated as 2nd class citizens none of the later conflicts would've happened.

Most notably, Palestinians were rsther explicitly forced out of Israel during the Nakba, itself a breach of International law. Nowadays, Palestinians are living under an apartheid regime: they are scrutinised much more closely during security checks, thir homes are appropriated by Israeli settlers, mkre often than not under the protection of the Israeli government. They don't have the same civil rights as Palestinians are tried in miliary and Israeli citizens in civil courts. Military courts generally don't offer the same legal or human rights protections, punishments are mlre severe, there's limited legal representation of the defendant and no confidential communication with lawyers, and Israel isn't an exception to this.

Regarding escalation: the Palestinians are rutinely, and often violently opressed in a systemic manner.

They can't get building permits. They get kicked off their land by settlers. They get retaliated against indiscriminately.

If you systematically opress someone like this, of course the desperate people will fight back in their desperation. What is unnecessary escalation is the disproportionate response of mass murder via starvation and bombing, as well as the systematic opression during the 70 years you mentioned.

None of this would've happened if Israel just came to some land, holy or otherwise, planted a flag and fairly enforced their laws according to basic principles of human rights

from what I gathered, I believed that Israel just took some land on which other people were living ~70 years ago, displacing these people. Those peoples didn't like being displaced and tensions grew, until attacks happened on Israel, to which Israel had mixed responses with violence and suppression, rinse, repeat and escalate for decades.

Uh... You're forgetting the Apartheid, brutal military occupation, massacres, ethnic cleansing via settlers and every other injustice Palestinians have faced for the past 70 years.

Now Israel had it with attacks from Palestine

You do realize Israel is the occupier here, right? Setting aside whether Israel has a right to exist (it doesn't; Apartheid ethnostates have no place in the 21st century), they absolutely have no right to keep killing Palestinians and stealing their land, yet they've been doing it for more than 70 years.

and is going with the only chance it sees at maybe stopping it, which is a very violent war,

Even if that was true, collective punishment is a war crime and Israel cleared that bar even before they bombed half of Gaza into oblivion. Even if Israel's goals were justified, their conduct during this "war" is absolutely unacceptable.

at least if you accept the existence of Israel, because if not they are the aggressors for occupying the space in the first place.

At this point it's not a problem of "in the first place". Israel is an occupier because they keep militarily occupying Palestine. Gaza and the West Bank are still considered as militarily occupied by the UN.

...they [Israel] are the aggressors for occupying the space in the first place.

It is staring you in the face. Additionally Israel continues to illegally occupy Palestine and the Golan Heights and the Knesset voted to oppose a two state solution.

And Hamas is the logical response of decades of Israeli policies. Have you asked yourself why in prosperous countries terrorism is non existent?

Do you think that Israel didn't create more terrorists than they killed? They completely destroyed Gaza, have a proven track record of killing journalists, humanitarian workers, medical personnel, kids and well documented war crimes and torturing their prisoners of war.

Not to mention that since the 7th of October there was an increased settler violence and pogroms all across West bank and their government approved the biggest land grab from the West bank.

Do you truly believe that the 7th of October attack really justifies all of the above? And all of this is coming from a "so called" democracy. Seriously